Haunted
by krumkler
Summary: Kate doesn't believe in ghosts, but Castle believes enough for the both of them. For Johanna Beckett, that makes all the difference. Set in late season 3. A thoroughly different take on Knockout.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Let's say that Josh went to Africa in Countdown, and he and Kate parted ways soon after that. This story takes place sometime in the second half of a therefore slightly altered season 3. There are two things. One: the idea that it would've been nice if Johanna Beckett and Castle could have met. Two: the idea that if Kate doesn't believe in even the possibility of magic, she'll never find it. I like to think she has become more open to the idea of fate and destiny and all that since Castle popped into the scene.

And, um, this story is kind of crazy. Let's say it's right in time for Halloween...I'm actually not sure where this story should go, so please be patient with me. And if you have any ideas...

* * *

The first time it happened, Kate thought her mind was simply playing tricks on her. She'd had a string of restless nights, spent staring at the ceiling above her bed when she wasn't tossing and turning. A nagging anxiety kept her up for hours, nights on end, and what bothered her most was that she couldn't understand where this anxiety was coming from.

Nothing was going particularly awry in her life. She'd beat her own personal best for closed cases last month, and even broken the 12th's in-house record. She'd had dinner with her dad just four days ago at their usual diner, to ease her mind and make sure he was alright. She'd left his company warm and centered, reinvigorated in a way only roast beef sandwiches and banana splits with her father could make her feel. But the moment she'd entered her apartment, the inchoate anxiety had returned. That night, she'd had vivid, haunting dreams of her mother. In some of the dreams, her mom's face was obscured, brushed out by some careless painter. In other dreams, her mom would watch her silently, still and unmoving. In others still, the worst ones, nightmares, her mother would open her mouth to speak but no words would come out. She'd woken up with a start, her sheets damp with sweat, her heart pounding against the confines of her ribcage.

So the first time it'd happened, three days ago, when she'd been standing next to Castle studying a body at a crime scene, she'd thought the sleepless nights were catching up with her, and that her unsettling dreams had affected her more than she'd acknowledged. She'd looked towards the crowd of onlookers who were trying to get an eyeful of a real live murder scene, and for the flash of an instant, thought she'd seen her mother in the crowd. She'd faltered at the sight, but only for a moment. And then, of course, she'd ignored it. What else would a sane person do?

The second time it'd happened, Kate had wondered if she should be questioning her sanity. Just yesterday, in the middle of an especially busy bullpen, with homicide detectives and uniforms bustling about their duties on a high-profile triple homicide, Kate had paused for a breath only to find her mother observing her through the breakroom window. She'd stood and she'd stared at her mother, and her mother had stared back. Kate had only been wrenched back to reality when Castle had handed her a cup of coffee, leveling his own expression of concern at her. When she'd glanced back at the breakroom, her mother was nowhere to be found.

After work yesterday, with the case tightly wrapped up, Kate had spent an hour in the precinct gym. Then, she'd gone home and spent another hour going through the most rigorous power yoga routine she knew. Once exhausted, she'd lit candles, picked out her favourite book, poured herself a glass of wine, and taken a long, hot soak in her tub. At 11PM, as she was getting into bed, Castle had called to ask her about a search and seizure technicality, and then kept her on the phone for an extra half hour discussing a mystery novel he'd caught a glimpse of in her purse earlier in the afternoon.

Last night, she'd slept like a baby.

In the morning, she'd woken up feeling more rested than she had in ages. With a full night's sleep under her belt, Kate was convinced her fugues of fancy were a thing of the past.

And so she now found herself standing in the morgue, listening attentively to Lanie, confident and sure and ready to conquer the world one criminal at a time. Starting with whomever murdered Mr. Martin Mortenson.

"Mr. Mortenson here was a heavy drinker," Lanie said, flipping through the chart in her hand.

"His wife did say he was a recovering alcoholic," Beckett replied. "Been sober for two years."

"Not according to his tox reports, he hasn't. His blood alcohol level was at 0.16 when he died."

"So he relapsed?" she wondered aloud, studying Mr. Mortenson's ashen face. "Either he was hiding something from his wife, or she's hiding something from us. Lanie," she shifted her gaze back to the M.E., "can you tell if this was a one-time-"

Beckett did a double-take. Her mother was standing next to Lanie, peering down at their vic. She was wearing one of her power-suits - an a-line skirt paired with a sharp jacket and what Kate remembered to be her favourite blouse. The sterile light in the autopsy room glinted off the auburn highlights in her hair. Her mother's eyes flicked up from the dead Mr. Mortenson and met hers. A sudden, slow smile bloomed over Johanna Beckett's face. Kate's breath caught at the sight.

"Beckett?" Lanie's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. "Honey, you okay?"

Beckett blinked. She tore her eyes away from her mother, and fixed them stubbornly on Lanie. "Uh." She shook her head briskly. "Yeah, um, I'm fine." She refused to look anywhere but at her friend. "Could you, uh, find out if Mortenson was back to drinking regularly, or if this was a one-time thing. Please. I'm going to go. Talk to Mrs. Mortenson." She turned on her heel and walked out of the morgue. Kate didn't look behind her, instead she headed straight to the elevator at a brisk pace and slammed her palm into the call button. The doors opened almost immediately, to Beckett's relief.

Once safely inside the carriage, Kate deflated against the back wall. She took deep breaths to calm her pounding heart.

It had felt so … real. Like she could've just reached out and touched her mom. The same sparkling green eyes, the beauty mark on her neck, the three grey hairs that drove her mother crazy whenever she looked at herself in a mirror. Every vivid detail of her face.

Kate had to close her eyes against the sudden swell of emotion. She'd been so worried, so afraid, that she would forget what her mom looked like. Apparently she'd worried for nothing. Not only had she not forgotten what her mom looked like, but she was able to conjure her up out of thin air with unerring accuracy.

"What the hell," Kate muttered. "You're fine," she told herself. She opened her eyes. "Just your imagin..."

Her mother was standing right in front of her, watching her intently. Her mouth opened to speak-

"No!" Kate put a hand up. She shut her eyes tight to block out the image. "No." Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. She was having difficulty catching her breath.

The elevator doors opened, and Kate stumbled out. She walked to the Crown Vic in a haze, not sure even if she was walking or running. Slumping into the safety of the driver's seat, Kate slammed the door shut behind her. Her fingers fumbled with the keys, and it took her a good three seconds to slip the key into the ignition and start the car. Kate threw a quick glance in the rearview mirror to check for traffic, and her heart almost popped out of her chest: her mother was sitting in the backseat.

Beckett dropped her forehead against the steering wheel. Her palms were sweating; her hands, shaking.

She focussed on breathing, because everything else was too much to handle at the moment.

Be reasonable, she thought. This was ridiculous. There was no way her mother was … haunting her.

Alright, Kate, she coached herself. Stop right there.

Maybe she hadn't gotten enough sleep - how could she expect to catch up on two weeks of poor sleep in one night? Not possible. She just needed to calm the hell down.

Kate sat up straight and took a deep breath. She would get a good night's sleep tonight, and everything would be fine. She put her car in drive and made her way to the 12th.

The drive took her 14 minutes. Her mother sat in the back seat the entire time, staring out the window in silent wonder.

* * *

"Beckett? Hey, are you alright?"

Beckett snapped out of her daze to find Castle sitting in his chair, watching her with eyes full of worry.

"Sorry, what?" she asked, shaking herself back to the present. She was at her desk. She was supposed to be going over the vic's financials. Castle's question registered belatedly. "I'm fine," she replied. "Just fine, Castle."

"You look … frazzled."

"Castle." She clipped out his name, had no patience for him when she was legitimately concerned that she was losing her mind. "I'm fine."

"Okay," he lifted both hands up defensively. "Alright, you're fine." He was watching her like she was a skittish foal. She hated it when he looked at her like that.

"Reading the same page from a bank statement for twenty minutes," he continued, pointing at the paper in front of her, "is you being fine. Randomly staring into the distance like you've seen a ghost is you being fine. Running out in the middle of a consult with Lanie also is you being just fine."

She flirted - for the briefest of moments - with the idea of telling Castle the truth. _Well, Rick, I have been seeing a ghost. My dead mother's, to be exact. _

She dismissed the idea immediately. It was too crazy even for Castle to swallow. He'd have her committed. Hell, she should have herself committed.

"We're just all worried about you," he said.

Kate abruptly stood up. "Ryan, Espo," she called out, pocketing her cellphone and making her way to the elevators. "It's late. Let's call it a night. I'll go over the bank statements in the morning. You two can interview the vic's co-workers."

"Kate, wait-" Castle stood up to follow her, but Kate was already pushing open the doors to the stairwell. The rest of his protest was cut off by the door swinging shut behind her.

Kate spent the evening in an oppressive, uncomfortable silence with her mother's ghost. She took the subway home with her mother standing next to her. Kate stared at everything but her mom, while her mom stared in fascination at a woman with three-inch nails playing Fruit Ninja on her iPhone. She walked to her apartment and checked her mail, while her mother strolled by her side breathing in the sights and sounds of a dusky New York evening. Kate had planned on getting take-out from the Thai bistro right around the corner from her apartment, but with her mother shadowing her every move, Kate couldn't do it. She remembered Castle's disapproval at the take-out containers - what had he called it? a 'styrofoam temple' - in her fridge, and thought her mother's disapproval would be ten times worse. This was the woman who'd always insisted on the powers of home-cooked meals.

So instead, Kate took a detour to the grocery store. She bought lots of vegetables.

Once home, she prepared a pretty involved dinner - she was not showing off, not trying to impress her mother, not seeking approval from … a figment of her own imagination. She ate dinner by herself, with her mother sitting across the table from her. Kate kept a book propped open on the table in front of her, and pointedly refused to look at her silent mom. She even more pointedly refused to consider that she was having a psychotic break. After all, if she could ask herself if she was having a psychotic break, that meant she wasn't having one, right? She just needed to keep calm-

Mercifully, at exactly that moment, a loud knock sounded at her door. Never in her life had Kate been so relieved for an interruption. She stood up and, in her haste to get some respite from the slow decline of her mental health, Kate opened the door without checking the peephole.

"Castle?"

"Hey, Beckett," he grinned, looking both tentative and determined as he stood in her doorway. She could see the trepidation under his veneer of good humour. "I was in the neighbourhood; thought I'd drop by."

"You live, like, twenty blocks away," she protested at his flimsy excuse, not sure if she was ready for whatever intent had brought Castle to her door tonight.

"Close enough," he entered her apartment without an invitation. "Wow," he stopped abruptly after taking one step in. "It smells amazing in here - wait, did you actually cook?" He turned to look at her, but stopped mid-motion when something caught his eye.

He threw Kate an apologetic look, and Kate could only frown back in confusion.

"I'm sorry," he said to her with a genuineness that caught her off guard. He then walked over to her dining table set for one. "I didn't realize Kate had company." He held his hand out to her mother, and broke into his most charming grin. "I'm Rick Castle."

Kate's jaw dropped. Her mother looked down at the hand Castle was offering, a grin of her own teasing the corners of her lips and amusement shining in her eyes.

"Y-you," Kate stuttered, "you can see her?"

Castle looked back at Kate in confusion, like she was the one being ridiculous. "Why wouldn't I see her?"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for giving the story a try, folks! Much appreciated. I now have a plot and everything.

* * *

"You're telling me that she," Castle pointed to the woman who was still seated at the dining table, "is your mother?"

Beckett nodded. She was looking anywhere but her dining room, while Castle couldn't look anywhere but at the woman sitting in the dining room. He could see her resemblance to Beckett. He could see her resemblance to the photos in her murder file. This was all pretty hard to believe, which was exactly why Castle immediately embraced it with a fully open mind.

It seemed Beckett, though, was having a harder time.

"And she's not..." Castle thought it polite to lower his voice on the last word, "_living_?"

His partner pursed her lips. She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.

Castle had to bite back a squeal of glee. How crazy cool would it be to meet a real, living - well, not quite 'living' - ghost? This was better than every birthday and Christmas and Halloween combined.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Castle!" Beckett exclaimed, her eyes flashing with an unfettered exasperation. With him or herself or the situation, he couldn't tell. "My mom died 12 years ago," she hissed. "She is not alive. That," she waved in the direction of her dining table but refused to look, "that...I don't know what that is."

"_She_'s your mom," he said, realizing that Beckett was very close to losing all composure, looking more unsure and upset and troubled than he'd ever seen her. He pushed his own mounting excitement into check to focus on her. After all, even if she had a reputation for being unshakeable, seeing the ghost of her mother who had died over a decade ago was bound to crack her wide open. Let alone the fact that Beckett didn't believe in ghosts.

He was met with silence. He chanced a quick glance at Johanna Beckett, and had to do a double take when he realized Beckett's mother was nodding at him.

Okay. He would admit to being a little … weirded out. He turned back to Beckett.

"Has she said anything?"

Beckett gave another imperceptible shake of her head.

He glanced back at Momma Beckett, who also shook her head. Castle blinked. This was getting surreal. He looked at Kate, but she hadn't noticed his exchange with the ghost.

"Uh. Okay," he said. "I am now realizing that all my years immersed in supernatural lore have left me grossly unprepared for actually meeting a ghost."

Beckett huffed out a laugh at that. "I swear to god, Castle, if you start talking about Ouija boards, I am kicking you out."

He was relieved she could still find her humour in this situation.

"How long has she, um," he searched for the right word, again disappointed by how not fluent he was in ghost lingo, "been around for?"

"I first saw her three days ago. At the Larson crime scene."

"Oh," realization washed over him. "You looked spooked." When Beckett didn't reply, he said, "I didn't see her."

"She was standing in the crowd. It was just for a split second, and then she was gone."

"That was the first time?"

Beckett nodded. "The second time was two days ago, in the breakroom."

He remembered how she'd looked like she'd been hit by a two-by-four, standing in front of her desk, unmoving, staring at nothing he could see.

"And then this morning, she was at the morgue, right next to Lanie."

"Did Lanie-"

"No. She didn't see her." Beckett chuckled, but it contained no amusement and was tinged instead with a kind of relieved hysteria. "I thought I was going crazy," she said, her voice a broken thing. She dropped her head into her palms. "This doesn't feel real."

"You're not going crazy. I see her, too."

"Measuring my sanity by yours is hardly reassuring."

"Hey now," he protested, only because he thought it might bring a smile out of her. He glanced at Johanna Beckett and, where the daughter still had her head buried in her hands, the mother was grinning widely, as though amused by their back-and-forth.

Castle didn't know what to make of that.

"She doesn't say anything," Beckett continued, with tears audible in her voice. She lifted her head to look at him. From the haunted look in her eyes, he thought there was more going on here than she was telling him.

"Have you tried speaking to her?"

She threw him an incredulous look, unsure if he was being serious or not.

"I'm serious," he defended. "Maybe you need to initiate, um," and again his words failed him. "...first contact."

"Castle," her voice cracked. She crossed her arms over her chest as though it would help hold her together.

"Hey, hey," he soothed, rubbing a hand up and down her arm. "It's okay. We'll figure it out."

Beckett's mother rose from the dining table. Castle watched her walk into Beckett's bedroom and engross herself in studying the pictures on the walls and bedside tables. Beckett didn't look at her at all.

"I would've given anything to see her again," Beckett said quietly, staring at the floor. "Just one more time. I was afraid I'd forgotten what she looked like." She bit her lip. Her eyes flicked to her room, before fixing on him. "What if...what if she's not speaking because I can't remember what her voice sounds like?" He saw the tears in her eyes, the desperation for some sort of absolution from her guilt.

"Kate, no." He wanted to hug her, hold her, but he thought she might fall apart if he did. So he contented himself with holding her hand. "What she looks like, sounds like, those aren't the things that matter. You honour her every day by honouring her legacy. That's what matters. You're the one who taught me that."

Beckett wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, letting his words sink in. She nodded. "Thanks, Castle."

"Always," he said, smiling at the warmth in her eyes, the shy tenderness. He looked up in time to see Johanna Beckett watching them from the doorway to Beckett's bedroom. He thought for a moment that maybe he saw approval in her expression.

"So, uh, what are you going to do?" he asked, nodding his head in the direction of her bedroom.

Beckett sagged, her momentary confidence again lost. "I don't know."

"Maybe she's looking out for you. Maybe that's why she's here."

She said nothing in response.

"Let me spend the night," he said impulsively.

She frowned at him, mouth already opening in protest.

"On the couch," he added hastily, realizing how his suggestion must have sounded. And Beckett's mother was standing right there. A quick glance told him she was silently laughing at him. Embarrassment heated his face. He felt like an oaf trying to fumble his way through high tea. It didn't help that Beckett was still frowning.

"I'm fine," she said defensively. "I don't need-"

"This isn't about needing anything, Beckett," he cut her off before she went down that well-worn road. "It's okay to want some company. Like a slumber party." He thought it was perhaps too soon to make a joke about telling ghost stories. "I know from experience that your couch is very comfortable."

Beckett cocked her head to the side and studied him for a moment. "No," she said decisively. "I'm fine. Go home, Castle. I'll see you tomorrow."

He didn't want to leave, but she looked like she truly wanted to be alone. Unlike the year before, when a serial killer had been threatening her life, Castle couldn't find it in him to invade her space tonight. He glanced towards Johanna Beckett. She was watching him, shaking her head from side to side. And what was that supposed to mean?

Beckett turned to see what he was looking at, but the moment she did, her mother stopped shaking her head. Johanna Beckett shifted her gaze to her daughter, silent and sad. At least, Castle thought she looked sad.

He tried again, thinking that maybe the mother wanted him to stay: "I'll be quiet as a church mouse."

"Castle, please." Beckett turned to him. Her eyes said more than her words ever could.

He sighed, giving up. He shot Mama Beckett a quick shrug, his expression communicating just how stubborn he thought her daughter was.

"Tomorrow, then." He stood up, and Beckett followed.

"If there's anything," he said to Beckett, "anything at all, call me. Doesn't matter what time it is."

She nodded, sliding her hands into her jeans pockets, looking ill at ease. He knew then that she wouldn't call him.

"Well, Mrs. Beckett," he dug up one of his famous grins and addressed her mother, even as his worry for Beckett dug in its claws. "It was a pleasure to meet you," he said, and thought that maybe he meant it. "Surreal," he added a bit more honestly, "definitely surreal, but a pleasure nonetheless."

Beckett was looking at him like he'd lost his mind, but behind her daughter's back, Mama Beckett gave him a wide grin. Her eyes shone with merriment.

"Until tomorrow, Mrs. Beckett," he said, unable to do anything but return her smile. He could see where Kate got that irresistible grin from. "And to you, too, Detective," he said to the daughter. The daughter who still refused to look at her mother.

"Goodnight, Castle," Beckett replied. She wasn't wearing heels, and the rawness in her eyes made her look younger than usual. He felt his own facade slipping away. No one should have to go through this alone. He wanted so badly to be there for her. His feelings must have leaked into his eyes, because he saw Beckett stiffen ever so slightly, her spine starched with sudden resolve.

"Goodnight," she repeated, her voice firm.

Castle nodded once. He knew when he was being dismissed. "Right. Tomorrow, then."

He searched the room for Beckett's mother as he exited the apartment, but she was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

The next morning, Castle met Beckett at the precinct. She was at her desk, going over Mr. Mortenson's financials. He set her cup of coffee in front of her and was rewarded with a brief, if somewhat distracted, smile. It set most of his worries at ease. He gave her a thorough once-over, and decided that she looked like she was doing okay. There was perhaps a bit more concealer than usual under her eyes, but given the circumstances it was understandable.

"So," he said, taking a seat in his usual chair. "How are y-" a familiar figure standing by the murderboard caught his attention. "Oh, hi there, Mrs. Beckett." He grinned at Mama Beckett. "You look lovely this morning."

"Castle!" Kate said in a fierce whisper, casting surreptitious glances around the homicide floor. "What are you doing?!"

"I'm saying hi to your mom," he replied. At Kate's stare, he added, "What? She's right there! It'd be rude not to."

Beckett heaved a weighty sigh and rubbed her temples. Castle decided that perhaps silence was the greater part of valour, and said nothing. Instead, he slid her cup of coffee closer to her. Caffeine usually helped in situations like this.

He did notice that Johanna Beckett was merrily grinning away. With Kate not paying her any heed, she gave Castle a quick wave of hello.

"Your daughter," Castle couldn't help but say to her, "doesn't have much of a sense of humour before her morning coffee."

Mama Beckett lifted her hand, index and middle fingers pointed upwards.

"Oh," Castle said, casting Beckett a quick glance. She was staring at her computer screen, pointedly ignoring him, not even looking at her mother. "This is her second cup? You're right. It usually does take two cups of coffee."

He and Mama Beckett exchanged smiles, and he thought the older woman had a most delightfully wicked sense of humour, perhaps where Kate got hers from. He looked at Beckett. She had missed the entire exchange, he realized.

"Hey," he said, leaning in towards her. "I'm playing charades with your mom."

"Stop it."

"You can't keep ignoring her."

She threw him a quick, ferocious glare. "Stop pretending to have conversations with my mo- with her. This is not a joke."

"I'm not pretending," he said. "Seriously, we-"

"Ryan, Esposito," she said, cutting him off as the rest of their team approached her desk. "Learn anything from the interviews with Mr. Mortenson's co-workers?"

Castle exchanged a greeting nod with Ryan and Esposito, but didn't pay any attention to their updates. Instead, he stood up and joined Johanna Beckett by the murderboard.

The older woman observed her daughter interacting with her coworkers, asking questions, theorizing and giving instructions. He marveled at how professional Kate was being. If it was him and there was a freakin' real ghost - his mother's ghost at that - standing next to him, there's no way he'd be able to concentrate on the case. Speaking of the case...

"Hey," he said to Mrs. Beckett, quietly so that no one would overhear, "do you think you could find Mr. Mortenson and ask him who his killer is?"

Johanna Beckett's shoulders trembled with laughter, even though no sound came out. She shook her head at Castle and rolled her eyes - actually rolled her eyes - and he was transfixed by her overpowering resemblance to Kate.

"Your daughter looks just like you."

Beckett's mother smiled, flattered and proud all at once.

Castle found himself charmed by the woman in front of him. There was a hidden sadness in her eyes, also so much like Kate.

"It would be an awesome premise for a book," he told Mrs. Beckett. "A detective and her ghost partner, solving crime on two planes of existence."

"Dude, you okay?"

Castle snapped out of his conversation with Mrs. Beckett at Ryan's voice. "Uh," he said, honouring his years as a best-selling novelist with that intelligent response.

"Yeah," Espo said, studying him suspiciously. "You look out of it. Who're you talking to?"

Beckett looked downright pissed off.

"Just thinking aloud," he said, recovering pretty smoothly he thought.

"I'm going to go talk to Mr. Mortenson's accountant," Beckett said in her no-nonsense voice. "You two verify his co-workers' alibis."

Without a backward glance, Kate marched towards the elevators. Castle gave Johanna a quick shrug and followed Beckett. He gave his partner a few moments to seethe in silence, figuring it was better to talk to her when they were alone, anyways.

"I think your mom is trying to communicate with us," he said once they were inside the elevator.

She clenched her jaw, but said nothing. He turned to face her, but Beckett stared with great determination at the closed doors in front of her.

"Listen, I did some research last night. I couldn't help but wonder: why would your mother show up now, of all times? I think maybe she's-"

Kate spun around to face him. The anger on her face made him flinch.

"Stop it," she ground out. "This is not some mystery you need to solve. This is not a story where you need to fill in the plot. This is my mother," her voice cracked, and in it he could see how she was using anger to hide from more difficult feelings.

The elevator doors opened to the lobby of the precinct, and before he could even blink, Beckett was out and heading for the front exit.

"Wait," he said, hurrying up to catch up to her. "You can't keep ignoring her, Beckett."

She stopped so suddenly, he had to do some fancy footwork not to run right into her. "Ignoring her!" Beckett exclaimed, and then lowered her voice, conscious of the lobby full of police officers. "Castle I don't know what the hell is going on, but it doesn't help to see you play the class clown with," and here Beckett faltered, "with my Mom's … whatever that, or she, is." He watched as her seldom-seen vulnerability surfaced. "I need my partner on this," she said quietly.

"I'm right here," he said earnestly.

"No," she shook her head. "You're too keyed up on the idea of some supernatural event or otherworldly explanation or whatever you want to call it!"

"Well we're not both losing our minds," he pointed out. "What explanation could there be, other than your mom is here in spirit - literally - and she must have a reason for-"

"Castle," Beckett said, shaking her head. "Go home."

"What? Why?"

"We are supposed to be focusing on solving a murder, Rick, and your mind is very obviously elsewhere. Just go home. I've got work to do." She turned on her heel and walked out.

* * *

Castle entered his loft with purpose. He was going to get to the bottom of what was going on with Beckett's mother. As he'd told Beckett, last night he'd scoured the internet and all the books on ghosts that he owned. The overwhelming consensus seemed to be that loved ones who stuck around usually had unfinished business they needed to finish. Beckett's mother must have something she needed to communicate to Kate.

What stumped Castle was why Johanna Beckett didn't speak. And why could only he and Beckett see her?

He threw his coat on the back of the couch and headed to the kitchen, deciding that a cup of coffee was necessary before he launched himself further into his research.

Castle stopped short, though, at seeing the elder Beckett standing in his kitchen.

"Mrs. Beckett!" he exclaimed, and then immediate frowned. Why was she here, and not... "Where's Kate? Is she okay?"

Mrs. Beckett said nothing, just tilted her head to the side and smiled. It was the way his own mother looked at him when she thought he was being sweet but ridiculous.

"Uh, okay," he said, disconcerted. And then he remembered his manners. "Would you like a seat, or um, well, I'm not sure what protocol is here," he found himself babbling, as he invariably did when nervous."I've, uh, never been alone with a ghost before. At least, not that I've known. I mean, you guys could be floating all over - not that 'you guys' are all the same. Or even should be all the same...or that you float! You don't seem to be floating..."

Castle decided it might just be better to shut up. So he did.

Johanna Beckett was grinning widely, clearly very amused by his bumbling. Apparently he could make an ass of himself even to ghosts.

"Real smooth, Rick," Castle muttered under his breath. Aloud, he said: "I was just going to make myself coffee." He pointed to the coffeemaker on the counter behind her. He awkwardly sidestepped her to reach it, and then had to work really hard not to keep glancing at her over his shoulder as he made coffee.

There was a ghost in his kitchen.

He could feel Beckett's mother standing quietly behind him, by the counter. It was disconcerting to feel a person's presence, and yet not.

"I would offer you a cup," Castle joked, trying to break the deafening silence, "but I'm guessing you don't drink coffee."

"I've always preferred tea."

Castle yelped, jumping about a foot into the air at the sound of Johanna Beckett's voice. He spun around, hand clutched over his chest.

"Y-you...you can talk?" he squeaked, his voice two octaves higher than usual.

Johanna Beckett was smiling. "I've always been able to speak. Finding someone who would listen," she continued, her smile fading, "is a whole other story."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** In honour of Halloween, another chapter. It's been awhile, but real life and work life are combining in a perfect storm and battering me from all sides. I also had a sudden crisis of confidence with regard to this story, but I think I'm back on track. Apologies, and much thanks for your patience. Let's say updates every two weeks? That gives me enough time to write! Story has a total of six chapters.

* * *

"Maybe you should take a seat," Beckett's mom said gently. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Uh," he said, trying valiantly to jump start his brain. Beckett's mother's ghost was talking to him. It was too much to compute. "How did you - how are … how come I can..."

"Well now, I've waited twelve years to be able to have a conversation with someone," she said, laughing at his dumbfoundment. "It's hardly fair that the first thing I say shocks the only person who can hear me into silence."

He gaped.

"I'm the _only _person who can hear you?" Shut the front door. Beckett did say her mother's ghost didn't talk.

"It would seem so," she replied. "Please, I insist you call me Johanna. Mrs. Beckett makes me sound old, and one of the perks of being a ghost is that I don't age."

He stared at her. Was Beckett's mother _joking _with him?

"Call me Rick," he said abruptly, partially coming to his senses and trying to make up for yet again being a fumbling ass. "I'm usually more together than this," he apologized. "I'm good at talking. Just, right now I'm a bit overwhelmed."

"I think I can forgive you given the unique circumstance we're in." She _was _joking with him.

Castle grinned. Beckett's mother's ghost was joking with him. The full reality of the situation hit him at that moment.

"This is so freakin' cool!" he said, bouncing on his toes. And then he didn't know what to say. What kind of conversation did one make with a woman who'd been dead twelve years? Was it polite to pick her brain about life as a ghost? No, that was probably intrusive and rude. And you could hardly talk sports or recent events with a ghost. Could you?

As he wrestled with his over-excited indecision, Castle's phone vibrated in his pocket. He couldn't help but check it; maybe it was Beckett.

"Excuse me," he told Johanna, "I just have to..." He pulled the out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. A text message from Alexis.

Not Beckett, then. He wondered whom she reached out to when she needed it. Which immediately had him wondering how often she actually acknowledged any such need on her part. Then again, she had shown up at his loft before, lost over a case or her mother's murder...

He glanced up at Johanna Beckett, but she was busy staring at the phone in his hand.

"That's a remarkable device," she said when she realized his attention was on her. "I used to have a mobile phone, before. It was actually a telephone though, not a pocket computer."

Castle thought this was the oddest conversation one could possibly have with a ghost.

But he'd take it.

He reached for his iPad, which was lying on the kitchen counter right behind Johanna.

"If you think that's amazing, look at this." He switched the device on and was about to hand it to her, when he hesitated. He wasn't sure if she could actually hold things. In the movie with Patrick Swayze, lifting objects was a learned skill for ghosts, as far as he remembered

"It's a touchscreen tablet," he said, trying to cover his sudden awkwardness. He set the iPad on the countertop. "Beckett actually bought one for her father, for his birthday."

"That was brave of her," she said, eyes sparkling with laughter. "I always told Jim he was secretly a card-carrying Luddite. It's where Katie got her love of antiques: Sunday afternoons scouting stores and markets and antique shows with her dad."

Castle grinned at the adorable image that conjured. It also explained a lot of Beckett's choices in apartment decor.

"He loves it," he said, taking a moment to relish in the fact that he was freaking talking to a freaking ghost. "Or so Beckett tells me. She downloaded an app that gives him realtime lake reports and the best fishing times at the lakes by his cabin."

"He has always loved fishing," Johanna smiled fondly. "Loved it almost as much as I hated the mess he made when he and Katie would clean and scale his catches before throwing them on the grill."

It didn't surprise him that Beckett could scale a fish.

"They were thick as thieves, the two of them," she continued fondly. "Birds of a feather."

Castle found himself smiling. This was a rare insight into Beckett. With him, she could be so … private.

Johanna sighed, an ancient sadness overtaking her. "Katie and her father share the same disposition, too," she said quietly. "Both always played it so close to the vest. They weren't very well-equipped to deal with my … death."

Castle hid his surprise at Beckett's mother broaching the topic so easily, freely. This was definitely something his muse had not inherited from her mother.

"It took them awhile," he tried to reassure her, "but they've come out stronger."

"You haven't seen them at their lowest, Rick."

"You have?" he asked. And then, just what Johanna Beckett was saying finally registered. "Wait, you never left, did you? You've been here the whole time."

She shook her head slowly. "I've always been here."

"Why didn't you go?" he asked, the idea of Johanna silently standing in the wings, unseen, unheard was gutting. "Why … why stay and watch?"

"Why torture myself, you mean?" She sighed. Her eyes held a wisdom that looked both hard-earned and well-worn. It made her look less human, more distant than Castle could wrap his mind around. "There's more to love than intangible emotion," she said. "It has a physical force. It ties us to each other, tethers us to this world. We'd be lost without it, floating without anchors, nothing to hold us."

"Even when we die?" This sounded like a very special kind of hell. Watching the world without being able to be a part of it. Watching the people you love try to live a life without you, try to fill the empty spaces you left behind with something other than grief. It was infinitely depressing that even the dead weren't spared the sadness of their loss.

"Death is traumatic; not just for the living, even for those of us who die. At first, it was a relief to be able to be near Katie and Jim. Even if as a ghost. To see them whole, to see they had each other. It eased my pain..." she trailed off.

"Then what happened?"

"At first, I didn't know. I couldn't go. I couldn't leave. Everytime I tried to move on, I couldn't. I was being held back." Tears filled her eyes. "Sometimes, I wanted nothing more than to leave. Having to see them hurt so much..."

Castle listened, and said nothing. This was the first time in twelve years someone could hear Johanna Beckett's words; the least he could do was listen.

"I had to watch them break," she said, "but I was also able to watch them build themselves back up. Jim, especially. He went through such a hard time. But with time, with Katie's help, he was ready to say goodbye, to let me go."

"But you're still here," he said, getting drawn in by the story.

Johanna sighed, wiping away tears.

"Can you move freely?" he asked, when he realized she wasn't going to say more without prompting. "Come and go as you choose?"

"To an extent." An intangible sadness held her hostage. "I can only be where Jim and Katie are. I watch over them until they are ready to let me go."

"But Jim, you said he let go."

She nodded. "He did. He has."

"Then you're still here, with Beckett," he said, "because Beckett..." he trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence, the reality too horrifying to verbalize. If Beckett knew, her heart would break all over again.

She met his gaze, and they both shared in the pain of the detective who was not in the room.

"Katie's heart … it's special," her mother said. "She feels so strongly. You know this."

He nodded. He did know. Her heart had been the second thing to draw him to her. Well, to be honest, the third. But only because he'd seen how big her heart was after he'd seen her smoking hotness and her whiplike intelligence.

"When it comes to people she loves," Johanna continued, "Kate is fierce, loyal in her love. Just as you are."

Castle looked at Johanna, startled.

"Like me?" he said. He thought of his past relationships: two ex-wives, a dating record which stretched a mile long, countless nameless faces. He'd come to realize, mostly after meeting Kate, that his love had been shallow. That he had been shallow. So he took Johanna's words with a grain of salt.

"You have a generous heart, Rick." she said, probably reading his scepticism. "You give all of yourself. I know from seeing how you love your daughter, your mother." She cocked her head to the side, a slyness overtaking her features. "How you love my daughter."

Castle started. He tried to say something, but nothing came. So he ended up gaping like a fish.

Johanna grinned. "It's a good thing," she said. "I think that's the reason you are the only person, aside from Katie, who can see me."

He was blushing, and he knew it.

"If you're right, why can't your daughter hear you?" he asked, only partly to change the subject, "and I can?"

"I don't know," she said. "I think she hurt too deeply," she replied, her grin fading. "It closed a part of her off. She won't listen."

She looked so sad, it twisted something inside of him.

"But maybe that's not it," he said, trying to think of a better story, one that wasn't so … heartbreaking, so unfair. "Maybe there's another reason you're here, why you've been here for so long. Why she can't hear you." He remembered all the books he'd read, the research he'd done last night. There was another answer. There had to be.

"Let me ask you, Rick, if it was you and your daughter-"

"I would stay," he said immediately, without hesitation. "For as long as she needed me." He meant it. But then, "how are you sure that's the reason you're here? How do you know?"

"I don't know," she replied. "Not for sure. This," she waved a hand down her body, "didn't exactly come with an instruction manual."

"Then we can figure it out," he said with conviction, and just a bit of desperation.

"I appreciate your optimism, Rick, I do. But I've been here for twelve years trying to figure it out. This is the best conclusion I've reached."

"Maybe you're a guardian angel," he suggested. "You're protecting your daughter."

"If I was here to protect her," Johanna pointed out kindly, patiently, "I wouldn't have let half the things that have happened to her happen."

That hit him like a bucket of bolts. He felt like an idiot for suggesting it. Beckett's life since her mother's murder hadn't exactly been a picnic.

"Point taken" he acknowledged. "Let's scrap the guardian angel theory. It was ridiculous."

"Besides," Johanna added, "I don't have a halo. I believe that's the customary dress code for guardian angels."

Castle had to laugh, even though he knew she said it just to pull him out of his self-recriminating funk.

Johanna hesitated. "There is one thing, though," she said. "A recent change. I didn't think much of it, but maybe..."

"Change? What do you mean?"

"It started so slowly, I didn't even notice it, but then..." she trailed off, unsure.

"Then what?" he encouraged.

"Something is coming," she said slowly. "Something … dark."

He frowned. "It's coming for Beckett?" he asked. Fear's cool tentacles slid up his spine. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Johanna shook her head in frustration. "It's vague. A feeling. I can't pin it down."

"You can feel this darkness?" he asked.

"I think so. It's hard to put into words." She shrugged helplessly. "Love isn't the only feeling that's tangible."

This was all very cryptic, he thought.

"Then maybe that's why Beckett can finally see you. Because of this … coming darkness."

"That's not the reason she can see me." Here, all uncertainty left Johanna's face. She looked at him with unimpeachable certainty. "The darkness is outside of her. Outside of all of us." Her eyes held such an intensity, he expected the air around her crackle. "Only one thing lets us see the hidden marvels in this world, and that thing comes from inside us. Inside her and inside you."

This was going from cryptic to downright confusing. Before Castle could ask any clarifying questions, the door to the loft swung open.

"Darling!" his mother exclaimed brightly. "You're home!"

Castle froze. He stared at his mother, eyes wide.

"I just came from the most relaxing meditation session," she said, busy removing her gloves and unbuttoning her coat. "It was delightful! I feel so centered and at one with the world," she finally looked at him, and paused. "What's wrong with you?"

"What?" he said, trying for nonchalant and coming across as panicked. His eyes darted from her to Johanna and back. "Nothing's wrong. Why would anything be wrong." He could see from her face that his mother wasn't buying it. Her eyes scanned the kitchen, but seemed to see nothing amiss. He tried to distract her: "Meditation, you said? Since when do you meditate?"

"Since I connected with the universe on a spiritual level," she said, as though it was a foregone conclusion. "And I needed it after last night - you haven't lived, I say, until you do the walk of shame into a meditation center on a Tuesday morning. It's a very effective cure for a mild hangover."

Castle couldn't miss the mirth dancing in Johanna's eyes at his mother's statement.

"Now," his mother said, slapping her gloves down on the counter as she entered the kitchen. "Stop trying to change the subject."

Castle could only watch in a muted, horrified fascination - too late to do anything to stop her - as his mother stepped right through Johanna Beckett as she came to stand in front of him.

Johanna almost phased out and then back in, the air around her shimmering as Martha walked through her. The hairs on his arms stood on end as he stared. He felt an encompassing warmth surround him. It was like stepping into a steaming bath, or being wrapped in a soft, heated towel. He looked at Johanna - she had her eyes closed, an oddly peaceful expression on her face, like she was taking a deep breath full of fresh air for the first time in years. He then looked to his mother.

Martha stopped the second she passed through Johanna. Her eyes widened for a moment, and then she looked around like she was seeing her surroundings for the first time.

"Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.

"It's...nice in here," his mother observed, almost absently. "Good energy."

Castle didn't know what to say. He didn't know, frankly, what was happening.

"Are you alright, Richard?" his mother asked, watching him curiously.

He looked at Johanna, who seemed none the worse for the wear. For a ghost, at least. "I'm fine, Mother," he replied honestly.

Martha studied him for a moment, and seemed convinced. "Alright then. If you're sure."

He nodded.

"Then I'm going to go catch up on my beauty sleep. I feel, all of a sudden, like I could sleep for days." With a final curious look around the kitchen, she turned and headed up to her room.

Castle just stared at the ghost in his kitchen. Johanna Beckett looked solid. But clearly she wasn't since his mother had walked right through her. And she'd looked transparent when that had happened, even the air around her had changed, glowed almost.

"What was that?" he asked Johanna. "When Mother..." he made slicing motions with his hand, at a loss for words, "right through you?"

"I'm a ghost, Rick," she replied, the teasing in her voice reminiscent of Beckett. "We're not exactly known for having the consistency of a brick wall."

"But you looked … at peace, when she," again he did slicing motions with his hand, "through you."

"Your mother has a good heart," she replied simply.

A good heart? So could _feel_goodness? He really couldn't stop staring at her. He wondered what it would feel like to pass through a ghost.

"You want to know what it feels like to touch a ghost," she guessed his thoughts easily. He'd never been known for his transparency, after all.

"Can I!" he squeaked, stoked at the thought of touching a real ghost. She was studying him in amusement, and Castle thought that Beckett's mom seemed to be getting a lot of amusement out of him.

"Go ahead," she raised her arm for him.

He remembered how Beckett was always scolding him for wanting to touch everything.

"It's not, uh, rude of me, is it?" he asked, trying not to sound too eager.

She laughed. "Not at all. I know how fascinated you are with all things supernatural."

"You do?"

"You forget," she replied, "I've known you for as long as my daughter has."

That made him grin.

"Go on," she said, stretching her arm out.

Gingerly, he reached out a hand, his fingers grazing her arm.

It was the oddest sensation. There was no resistance as his fingers met her, but he did feel a tingling warmth. He tried to take hold of her hand, watching in amazement as his slid right through hers. The air shimmered where he made contact. Even though he wasn't touching anything tangible, he felt a warmth and comfort unlike anything he'd felt before.

"Amazing. You give really great handshakes. I thought it would feel … cold." And creepy, but he didn't voice that aloud. This was far from creepy; the opposite in fact.

"Don't believe everything you read."

"So this is how it feels to touch death," he murmured, and then immediately stopped himself. He gave Johanna an apologetic look. "Sorry, that was insensitive."

"Don't apologize. It's the truth - a spade is a spade," she was smiling, so he figured she was being sincere. "And it doesn't feel like this for everyone."

"What do you mean?"

"The good ones have nothing to fear from death. For some, from what I've observed, this doesn't feel quite as pleasant."

"So you're the litmus test for entry into heaven?" Awesome superpower.

"I have no idea," she shrugged. At Castle's confused frown, Johanna elaborated: "I don't know what happens after this part. Heaven, hell, limbo, reincarnation, an eternal nothing ... I do know one thing, though: one day, I'd like to find out."

His heart went out to her. She was stuck here. Held back by...

And then, Castle had an idea. He knew how to fix this.

* * *

She was gone.

Kate sat on the couch in her apartment, fidgeting uneasily. Her eyes darted around her apartment, even though she knew she was alone. She had searched the entire apartment, and her mother was nowhere to be found. Ever since she'd sent Castle away, her mother had been nowhere to be seen. She should feel relief, she thought, but instead she couldn't keep still, couldn't settle her thoughts. A bubbling anxiety had simmered just under her skin all day. Had she left? Gone, just like that? Why had she been there in the first place?

Kate took a deep breath. She rubbed a hand over her eyes. She had to keep it together. Everything was back to normal. This is exactly what she wanted. Everything was fine.

Feeling more composed, Kate lifted her hand from over her eyes. And there was her mother, standing in her living room, watching her with a warm smile.

Kate stared, unable to move, her thoughts a sudden jumble, her emotions a messy tangle of hope and anxiousness the jagged edge of grief.

Her mom was back. Was she back? Maybe she was imagining it...

Beckett closed her eyes. She counted to ten and opened them: her mother was still there, standing still and silent in front of her.

A pervasive, bone-deep relief had her sagging back against her couch cushions. Her mom was still here; she hadn't left suddenly and without a word, hadn't left her waiting and never shown up again. Kate felt tears punch at her eyes and grip her throat. Her mother broke their staring contest at that moment, and glanced towards the door.

Not a second later, a knock sounded.

Beckett frowned, unsettled by what could only be a coincidence. She slowly stood up, wiping at her eyes as she stepped around her mom to make for the foyer. A quick check through the peephole told her it was Castle. She leaned her forehead against the door, not sure if she wanted to let him in. She glanced towards her mother, but the woman was already retreating into the bedroom.

I want to hide, too, Beckett thought.

He knocked again, and Kate told herself to man-up. She opened the door.

"Hey," she said, trying to sound normal.

"Hey," he smiled, tender and soft, and Kate had to swallow the sudden lump in her throat. "How are you doing?"

Her worry over her mother had her all scrambled up. She was too stripped down to handle his gentleness.

"I'm fine, Castle," she replied evenly. "We closed the Mortenson case, by the way. The doorman did it."

"Your mother paid me a visit today," he said, entering her apartment and ignoring her update on the case.

"My … what?" she said, confounded. "My mother?"

"After you kicked me out-"

"I didn't kick you out," she defended, not liking the way that sounded coming from him.

"-I went back to my place, and your mom was there."

She could only stare.

"I think she likes me," he continued. "I'm hard to resist, you know. You seem to be the only person who doesn't get that."

"Castle," she prompted at his tangent. "Your point."

"Right, she came to visit me." He looked intently at her, and she braced herself. "We have to get to the bottom of why she's here, and what role you play in it."

"Not this again," Kate huffed, and turned away from him. "I told you to stop meddling."

"She's a ghost," he continued, following her into the apartment. "My mother walked right through her. Accidentally," he thought to add. "She couldn't see her."

"I've taken the subway with my mom. Since she's literally invisible to everyone but us, I've seen half of New York walk through her by now," Beckett said, flopping down on the couch.

"And you say I'm always coming in your way."

She rolled her eyes. He always joked at the worst possible time.

"I just came here to say one thing" he said, reading her impatience. "Then I'll go and I won't mention your mom again. Even when she's literally in the room with us," he added pointedly, "and I was raised with better manners than that."

She looked at him with the full measure of scepticism and distrust that she felt. He was up to something.

"Try talking to her," he said. "Just try."

"Castle," she warned.

"I know you don't believe in ghosts. You don't believe in anything you can't explain with one of your boring, reasonable explanations."

She arched an eyebrow at him. He wasn't doing a terribly good job of swaying her on this.

"But," he continued, "you can see her. She's right there. Whatever brought her here or is keeping her here, whatever else she may be, she's your mother."

She bit her lip, glancing towards her bedroom into which her mom had disappeared.

"Keeping her here?" Kate repeated. She studied him carefully. It might be another of his crazy theories, but she knew him well enough to catch his inflection when he said it. He knew something. "What do you mean?"

He hesitated for a moment so brief, she wasn't sure if she was imagining it. "Why is she here, Beckett? What's her unfinished business?"

"Unfinished business? This isn't some B-rate Halloween movie, Castle."

"Just try, okay?" he insisted.

Beckett searched his face. There was one thing she knew about Castle, one thing she'd learned when he first dug into her mother's case: he meddled and he got in the way and he never listened and he did as he pleased and he annoyed the hell out of her, but he always had the best of intentions at heart.

The road to hell, she thought...

"Alright," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "I'll try."

He grinned. "Good," he said. "Good. Alright. I'll see you tomorrow?"

She nodded.

He looked beyond her, towards her room. Beckett followed his gaze, and saw her mother standing in the doorway.

"Until tomorrow, Mama Beckett" he called out to her mother, and gave two thumbs up.

Kate rolled her eyes. "I'll walk you out," she said, standing up.

"No need," he replied, and promptly showed himself out.

Kate turned towards her bedroom. Her mother was standing in the doorway, watching her expectantly. She thought of Castle's words, _try talking to her_.

Fear swirled low in her gut. She rubbed her palms against her jeans.

Talking to her mother. Her dead mother. Her dead mother's ghost.

It was more than Kate could handle.

What if her mother didn't answer, she thought desperately. What if her mother just kept staring at her in silence? And what should she say to her mother's ghost?

_What's her unfinished business?_

Kate thought of the unsolved case taped to her window. She thought of Lockwood, who was sitting in his cell, refusing to say a word to her. She thought of Coonan, now dead. Of McCallister, also stubbornly silent. She thought of all the dried up leads and dead ends.

The truth will set you free, her mother used to say.

Was that her unfinished business, Kate thought. Was she looking for justice?

"Do you," she started to say to her mom, and then had to stop at the spark that lit her mother's eyes, the rush of joyous anticipation that crossed her mother's face. It made Kate's breath catch, and brought sudden tears to her eyes. She again found herself questioning her sanity. This was crazy. Absurd.

Unfinished business, she reminded herself. She took calming breaths and tried again: "Do you remember who killed you? Is that why you're here?"

Her mother's face fell, shock crossing her features. She said nothing, just stared, looking like Kate had broken her heart.

Kate dropped her head, closed her eyes as tears finally fell.

Of course her mom wouldn't say anything. She hadn't found her mother's truth yet. How could she face her? How could her mother speak to her when she'd so far let her down?

"I'm sorry," she whispered, numb. Tomorrow, she thought. She'd go visit Lockwood and get him to break, she'd get him to speak and she'd have her mother's truth.

And then the nightmares where her mother stared at her, watching, waiting, silent, always silent, would end.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: An update! This chapter is very long, and I should have divided it in two but I didn't. Consider it a Christmas present. In fact, at the rate I'm going this story is only going to get updated around major holidays. What's the next one? Easter?

Kidding. Sort of. I promise I will finish this story; I can't promise I will do it in a timely manner.

ps. this chapter contains dialogue taken directly from the season 3 finale. Hope no one sues me...

* * *

Beckett sat in her car, her hands on the steering wheel, the ignition turned off. Her mother was sitting next to her in a passenger seat, peering through the front windshield at the prison that loomed above them.

"I'll find the truth," Beckett said quietly, unable to look at her mom. Afraid of again seeing that heartbreak. She hadn't been able to look at her since last night. If Castle was right, if her mom was stuck here, if finding Dick Coonan wasn't enough to grant her mother freedom … "I promise."

Her words met with nothing but silence. Beckett sighed. Silence seemed to be a recurring theme. She'd been visiting Lockwood once a week and getting nothing but silence there, too. But where her mother's silence echoed with all the trappings of failure, Lockwood's silence was sharp and vicious.

With those far from comforting thoughts, Kate stepped out of the car.

Her mother didn't follow.

An hour later, Kate watched the prison guards process paperwork over McCallister's death. McCallister's murder, she mentally corrected, by Lockwood's hand. It would be a long time before she'd forget the way Lockwood had watched her with cold, calculating eyes, like a predator eyeing prey, blood spattered on his face and dripping from his hands. Kate was glad her mother had stayed in the car.

But far from being demoralized, Kate was downright vibrating with adrenaline. Finally. Finally movement on the could feel it pulsing in her veins, that feeling she got when an unsolved was about to blow wide open, when a longshot lead turned into a smoking gun. She didn't even bother hiding her smirk of vindication at remembering the way Lockwood had watched her. He may have thought she was the prey, but Beckett knew better. She was the one doing the hunting, and he'd finally taken the bait.

She was going to give her mother justice.

* * *

Much later that morning, Castle stood in the break room preparing a cup of coffee and mulling over this sudden turn of events. Esposito and Ryan had informed him that Lockwood had shanked McCallister in his prison cell. Beckett had been right there, they said, on her weekly visit to Lockwood when it had happened.

He couldn't help but worry about the timing. Someone was sending a message to Kate; why else would this happen during her scheduled visit? And he also couldn't help but remember what Beckett's mother had said about a coming darkness...

He hoped, fervently prayed that Beckett was okay, that she was handling it well. She was on her way back to the precinct, so Castle knew he'd find out soon enough exactly how she was doing. A part of him, one he'd suppressed since he'd punched Lockwood in his dirty no-good face and Beckett had bandaged him back up, whispered that he should have paid closer attention to her in the past months. It wasn't that she'd been any different since Lockwood's incarceration. Not exactly. But there was something, a determination in her eyes, a desperation whenever she came to the precinct after one of her visits to the prison. It hadn't interfered with her work or her personal life, as far as he could tell, but maybe-

"You're thinking pretty hard there."

He jerked around in surprise to find Johanna standing next to him.

"Good morning," he said, digging through his anxiety to find a smile for Beckett's mother. He'd been dying to know what had happened in Beckett's apartment since the moment he'd left it last night. "How'd it go last night?"

Johanna's face fell. She shook her head.

"How bad?" he asked. His hand tightened around his mug, half-afraid to hear the answer.

She looked away, blinking too fast.

"Hey, hey," he soothed. "It'll be okay. What happened?" he prodded, getting more and more concerned.

"She asked me if I remembered who murdered me." Her voice shook as she spoke.

"She asked you if you remembered..." he repeated, dumbstruck. And on the heels of his surprise, a shameful guilt was quick to follow. Of course. He'd been an idiot, telling Beckett her mother had unfinished business. What else would she think but that her mother wanted to solve the mystery of her death? And now with McCallister being killed...

"What happened at the prison today, Lockwood killing McCallister," Castle looked intently at Johanna. "You said something dark was coming. Was this the darkness you were talking about?"

Johanna looked at him in surprise. "I...I don't know," she said, sounding far from sure.

"It'll be fine," he assured her, but thinking of Beckett's single-minded quest to find her mother's killer was suddenly unsettling him in ways he couldn't quite verbalize. And what if Beckett had been right this whole time, in doing what she was doing? What if...

"Could that be the reason you're here?" he asked Johanna. "Justice?"

"No," she said slowly, carefully, as though she'd given this a lot of thought but wasn't quite sure of her answer. "I don't think so. When I said death was traumatic for those who die, I wasn't being figurative. I have no memory of my death."

"You have no memory of that night?"

"One moment I'm in the alley, alive, and the next, I'm standing next to Katie and Jim as they're walking under the yellow police tape."

It was remarkable, Castle thought, how clinical she sounded talking about her own murder.

"You must-" he began eagerly, and then stopped himself. One thing he'd learned from Beckett was how to be a bit more sensitive when it came to broaching touchy subjects with witnesses and victims, instead of stomping everywhere, turning over rocks and poking at lumps trying to uncover the story. He tried again, in a gentler way: "I mean, do you remember at least something, a reason why someone would want you dead? Do you suspect who did this? The man McCallister calls the dragon, the man who hired Lockwood?"

Johanna shook her head, and her frustration was clear for him to see. In fact, she looked uncannily like her daughter when she was holding something back. It seemed like he wouldn't get anything more out of her. But maybe his downtrodden expression changed Johanna's mind, because after a moment's silence, she reluctantly spoke: "I tried to solve my own murder at first."

His eyes lit up at the revelation.

"Briefly," she said, quickly tempering his expectations. "I was angry, I was furious with whoever did this, whoever made me so helpless. But it didn't take me long to figure out that catching him wouldn't give me back my life. It wouldn't give me back my family. Besides, when I did try to solve it, I couldn't make any progress. So I let it go. It was either that or let the anger eat away at me."

"You _couldn't_make any progress? What do you mean? Something stopped you?"

"I mean I can't recall anything about what got me killed. Everytime I try to think about it, to remember...there's nothing. Just a giant blank. It's like trying to grab a fistful of smoke. The first time you and Katie met Lockwood and McCallister and even Dick Coonan, that was the first time I remember meeting them."

"You didn't recognize Coonan?" he repeated, dumbstruck. He was the man who had killed her, how could she not have recognized him?

Johanna shook her head. "When he died, I..." she tripped over her words for a moment, looking guilty. "I didn't feel anything. Nothing." Her eyes darkened with sadness, shoulders dropped in defeat. "But Katie, she was so disappointed..."

Before Johanna could finish her thought, before Castle could process what she was saying, a blur of activity suddenly animated the homicide bullpen. Castle looked out the break room window in time to see Beckett finish off giving instructions to Esposito and Ryan and head towards him.

He looked back at Johanna, but she was nowhere to be found.

He kept meaning to ask her where she went when she did that.

"Hey," Beckett said, looking driven and focused and very much together.

"How are you doing?" he asked. "Ryan and Esposito told me about what happened at the prison."

"I'm fine," she said, as though this was a morning like any other. He recognized this defence mechanism: this was Kate Beckett tying up every troublesome, annoying emotion into a neat little box and locking it away so she could focus on her goal. When he'd first met her, he'd admired her ability to do so. She was the exact opposite of him; he got distracted at the drop of a hat. Now, though, he wasn't so sure. Especially since he didn't know how often she unlocked the vault to let those messy, painful emotions get a little air.

As he watched her make coffee, Castle briefly considered pushing her a bit, but this was hardly the time. And a selfish part of him didn't want to be the one to push her, to see her fall apart. When it came to her mother's case, the glue that held Beckett together was brittle and cracking at the edges. He'd hurt her and upset her once already over this case, and since that day he'd promised himself that he wouldn't let that happen again. He was in this with her.

"How did Lockwood even get into the general population?" he asked.

"Esposito's running it down now," Beckett replied, and Castle forced himself to concentrate on her words and not his own feelings, "but I'm guessing it wasn't an accident."

"I'm sorry," he consoled, because he didn't know what else to say.

"For what?"

He studied her, unsure if she was playing dumb or if she actually meant it. "First Raglan, now McCallister? They're both retired cops who had something to do with your mother's death. Whoever's in charge of this is tying up loose ends. He's cutting of all avenues in your investigation."

She looked at him like he was crazy.

"I've been going to that prison every week for the past four months to have a staring contest with the devil," she said with an intensity that caught him off guard. "And the devil just blinked." She was high, he realized, on the sudden unexpected movement in the case. High and determined and defiant. His worry went from gnawing to chomping at the bit.

"This is exactly what I've been waiting for," she told him, and he knew she believed it one hundred percent. She picked up her cup of coffee and turned to walk away.

"Beckett, wait." He stopped her with a hand to her wrist. "Last night, with your mother-"

"Castle." Her voice was as hard as steel, and her eyes just as unyielding. "I am going to find out who killed her. I will get her justice and then she'll be free." A predatory self-satisfaction smoldered in her expression. "Just like you said."

Before he could even think to formulate a reply, Esposito and Ryan appeared in the break room door.

"Hey," Esposito said, "the Department of Corrections says the signature on the transfer order was forged."

"And the only people with access to those documents at the prison are corrections officers and authorized clerical staff," Ryan finished.

"Which means means bribe or blackmail," Beckett said. She walked out of the break room at a quick clip, with the three men following closely. "I want a full work up of every employee in that prison, sworn and civilian. I want to know who was late on their mortgage, who was behind on their child support. Someone took a hell of a risk cutting Lockwood this transfer, and they had to have been pretty desperate."

"Got it," Esposito replied, and he and Ryan headed to their desks while Castle followed Kate to hers.

"See," she told him, "now we have a trail."

"So where are we going?" he asked. She placed her still-full coffee cup on her desk and headed towards the elevators without slowing her pace.

"To Lockwood's arraignment," she replied. "I want to see if we can rattle his cage."

"Lockwood doesn't seem like the rattling type."

"Not Lockwood. Whoever's holding his leash."

It sounded like a foolhardy plan to Castle. How do you rattle the cage of a puppeteer who has no qualms ordering hits on cops and lawyers? A puppeteer who had successfully hidden in the shadows for nineteen years? He searched the precinct floor, but Johanna had not returned. None of this sat right with him. Not McCallister's death, not Johanna's absence, and not least of all Beckett's sudden single-minded drive.

He wasn't sure what was coming their way, but he was going to stand by Kate's side and protect her from the dragon, and from herself. That was his resolve.

* * *

Two nights later, Castle closed the door behind him, mulling over the absolute crap-fest this day had been. Hell, the last two days had been absolutely fubar. He should've known the situation was slipping out of his grasp the moment Jim Beckett had come to see him last night, asking him to talk Beckett off the ledge.

Who was he kidding. He should've known the situation was way beyond his control when Lockwood had escaped captivity at his arraignment and Kate had chased after him and his armed escorts without any backup.

It still shook him to think of it. Chasing after trained pros without backup was the kind of thoughtless, reactive, absolutely insane thing he would do. It was not a thing Beckett did.

He didn't know how to say this much to Jim when the man had come over last night, even though he silently agreed that Kate was disappearing behind this inflexible, angry stranger who couldn't see past her own stubbornness. In such a state of mind, would she even listen to him? Could he get her to listen to him?

Jim Beckett seemed to think he could do it. He wasn't so sure he agreed.

After Jim had left, these were the thoughts that had circled in his head, round and round, ad nauseum. So he'd gone to bed and decided to sleep on it, praying that maybe the coming day would be better. After all, they'd had leads to follow, hope to latch on to.

Wishful thinking. Today had been awful. A disaster. Their leads had all dried up, and Beckett had yelled at Ryan and Esposito on account of it. Had he ever before heard her lose her temper with her partners? He kept replaying the desperate edge to her voice, the wildness in her eyes as she dressed them down for something that was out of their control. She'd disappeared from the precinct after that, taking the case files with her.

And Castle's day had ended with Montgomery telling him he was the only person who could make Beckett stand down.

That feeling from yesterday morning, of wanting to be her ally, of wanting to be there for her no matter what, was getting stronger. But now, he thought, with the insight Jim and Montgomery were giving him, maybe standing by her side meant getting her to stand down.

Castle allowed himself a moment of despair. He dropped his forehead to rest against the front door. He felt like he'd been thrust into the deep end with no floaters on.

Having Jim and Montgomery in his corner was one thing; getting Beckett to listen to him when she was at the peak of her obstinacy, driven by an obsession that scared him … that was something else altogether. If he confronted her when she was in such a state, would their partnership survive? But then, if it meant her safety, her life, did it really matter if their relationship didn't survive?

Castle sighed. Moping against his front door wouldn't help, he sternly reminded himself. He needed to figure out how to approach her. Whether to approach her...

He turned away from his door and headed to the kitchen in search of something that would help ease his jittering anxiety, when he noticed Johanna sitting in the chair her husband had occupied just last night. She'd been a no-show since yesterday morning, in the break room. He remembered what Johanna had said about murder being traumatic for the victim. He wondered what she was scared of now. Seeing her daughter fall back into that rabbit hole, or uncovering the mystery behind her murder.

"Jim's right, you know," Johanna said to him, her voice quiet in the dim apartment. "Our daughter is going to run headfirst into this, without a care for her safety."

And there was his answer.

"You were here the whole time?" he asked. A sudden weariness overtook him. He abandoned his course for the kitchen, and instead slouched down into the chair across from her. For the first time in his life, he felt old.

"Heard every word." There was something in her tone of voice that caught his attention.

Castle studied the woman sitting across from him. "Does it hurt?" he asked. "Seeing Jim again?"

It took a moment for the question to register, but when it did Johanna shook her head. A soft smile overtook her features. "Seeing Jim could never hurt." Embers of warmth glowed in her eyes. "He was my rock. Solid, steadfast. Still is. When things get a bit much here, he's my refuge."

"So that's where you disappear to," he said, triumphant with this sudden insight. Triumph, however, was quick to fade as the rest of her words registered. "I'm sorry," he shifted uneasily in his chair, finding it difficult to look Johanna in the eye. She was kinder to him than he deserved.

"What for?" she replied, confused.

"For making things between you and Beckett worse." He gave her a sheepish half-grin. "I have a knack for nosing around where Beckett's concerned. Seems I can't help myself." He paused, couldn't help the fond laughter. "It really annoys her."

"I bet you like annoying her," Johanna teased.

"Not like this," he said regretfully. "Not over this case."

"It's not your fault, Rick. I should have realized what conclusion Katie would leap to." She sighed. "So stubborn and hard-headed. She's always been a willful child. Drove Jim and me up the wall. Actually," here she allowed herself a slight smile, "it's surprisingly comforting to know that some things don't change."

"She drives me up the wall, too," he confided, eyes twinkling.

"But she does listen to you," Johanna said. "She doesn't listen to her father, she can't even hear me, but you..."

"You too, huh?" Castle sighed with resignation, slumping once again in his chair. "You want me to walk into the lion's den. Unarmed. She'll fillet me alive."

Johanna put a hand on his arm, and Castle immediately felt better just from the contact. Warm and secure and so hopeful.

"The reason Katie can see me," Johanna said, "the reason she sees me now, after all these years, is you."

"Me?" he said, surprised. "What did I do?"

"You made her believe again, Rick." She looked at him with an intensity, a gratitude, he couldn't escape. "You opened her heart. I think-no, I _know_, that's the reason she can see me after all this time."

The tight, steely bands around his chest loosened. He felt the involuntary smile on his lips and straightened his back.

That was all the pep-talk he needed.

"If you'll excuse me, Johanna," he said standing up, "There's a lion's den calling my name."

It took Castle twenty minutes to cab it over to Beckett's apartment, and in that time the courage he'd corralled from Mama Beckett's pep talk had quietly but surely escaped his hold. And so he found himself standing in front of Beckett's door, reminding himself of his game plan. A plan that was drawing heavily on research he'd done for Nikki Heat. In drawing up the initial character sketches for his favourite eponymous character and her father, after Beckett had told him about her mother's case and the dark place she'd fallen into, he'd boned up on the behavioural patterns found in alcoholics. A lot of what he'd found hadn't yet made it into his books, but he'd drawn from his research during the cab ride over and he'd used it to prep for his upcoming confrontation with Beckett.

Hopefully, it would help.

"Wish me luck," he muttered to the empty hallway, deciding that wherever Johanna was, she could hear him. He then gave two sharp, firm raps of his knuckles on the door and waited.

The door swung open after a longer than usual pause, revealing Beckett and the gun firmly gripped in her hand.

Whatever little remaining confidence Castle may have retained fled at the sight of her looking so unlike herself. He tried to rally.

"Can I come in?" he asked, aiming for casual even as he could feel the anxiety rolling off of her. She was the exact opposite of the composed, tough-as-nails woman who'd told him just yesterday morning that she'd won a staring contest with the devil.

"Yeah," she said.

"So," he said, making a show of looking around her apartment as he walked in. "Have you seen your mom recently?"

She silently shook her head, her jaw clenched tight. Castle told himself to tread carefully.

"We went over McCallister's old arrest records," he launched into his flimsy cover story, "and you were right. There was a third cop on a lot of those arrests, but then someone went back into those reports and removed their name." He saw her impatience and disinterest, and he rushed to finish, "so Ryan and Esposito are right now looking into the records from back then."

"Castle," she said tiredly, "you couldn't have told me this over the phone?"

"Well," he hesitated, taken aback by the lack of fire in her, "yeah ... but I thought that..." he stopped, not knowing where to go with it and frankly a bit wary of just how tenuously Beckett was holding onto her patience for him. She hadn't looked at him with such annoyance in a very, very long time. His pause was apparently her last straw.

"Castle," she said, "if you've got something to say, just please say it."

He reminded himself of Johanna's words of encouragement, and took the plunge. "Beckett," he tried to reason with her, "everyone associated with this case is dead. Everyone. First your mom and her colleagues, then Raglan and McCallister. You know they're coming for you next."

She stared at him, and for a moment he thought maybe he'd gotten through to her but then she shrugged a shoulder dismissively.

"Montgomery's got a protective detail on me," she informed him, setting her gun down as though to prove she thought she was safe. A bit of hubris entered her tone as she added, "it wasn't that hard to spot."

"That's not going to be enough to stop Lockwood; you know that. Think about what they're up against: professional killers?"

She was unmoved.

He persevered. If reason wouldn't work, maybe she needed perspective: "I've been working with you for three years. You know me: I'm the guy who says we can move that rubber tree plant, but you know what? Beckett, I don't think we're going to win this."

"Castle, they killed my mother!" she protested. "What do you want me to do here?"

And this was it, he thought. Make or break. He looked her in the eye.

"Walk away," he said.

Beckett's face fell. If he had to pick one word to describe her reaction, it would be betrayal.

Break, he thought. This would break them. He'd been betrayed in his life, had his own share of heartbreak. But he didn't think anyone had ever looked at him like she was looking at him right now. Like he'd sawed her in half.

"They're going to kill you, Kate." He pulled out the last card in his deck. Desperate measures, he justified. He gentled his tone, tried to reach for that fiercely loyal, protective part of her. The part that put others first. "If you don't care about that, at least think about how it's going to affect the people who love you."

The betrayal on her face was washed away by a cynical distrust. Walls, Castle thought. She's building more walls. And so he kept pushing against her increasing resistance.

"Do you really want to put your dad through that?" he continued. "What about your mother?"

"You're bringing my mother into this?" she said, incredulous and defensive and angry. "What about you, Rick?"

"Of course I don't want anything to happen to you," he replied, not rising to the bait. "I'm your partner. I'm your friend."

"Is that what we are?"

He stared at her, unable to quite believe she was lashing out against him in such an underhanded way by hinting at the large elephant in the room. Hinting at his feelings for her which he'd silently been carrying alone for so much time now. And hinting at them in such a callous, dismissive tone. His head knew reason, but his heart only knew hurt in that moment. He broke his resolution to stay away from confrontational body language and stepped into her space, so she had to look up at him.

"You know, I don't know what we are," he replied. "We kiss, and then we don't talk about it." He felt a jab of satisfaction as her eyes widened in surprise. He kept going, propelled by his own momentum. "We nearly die, frozen in each other's arms, but we never talk about it. You and Josh break up, and you still keep me at arm's length. So no," he said, "I've got no clue what we are. But I do know I don't want to see you throw your life away."

She stepped up to him, not intimidated in the least. Her eyes were flashing and her tone sharp.

"Last time I checked it was my life," she said. He'd seen her like this before, when she was intimidating the most meanly recalcitrant suspects. Daunting, voice raised, eyes honed in on their target. "My. Life. Not your personal jungle gym. For the last three years, I've been running around with the school's funniest kid and it's not enough." She walked away from him, heading towards her front door no doubt to show him the way out.

His frustration boiled over at hearing her words. He'd been worried about poking at her vulnerabilities, while she had no qualms going straight for his jugular.

"You know what," he said, refusing to back down and instead launching his own well-aimed throw, "this isn't about your mother's case anymore. This is about you needing a place to hide." And bull's eye. She stopped mid-step and turned around to stare him down. He continued: "because you've been chasing this thing so long, you're afraid to find out who you are without it."

A white hot fury flashed in her eyes.

"You don't know me, Castle." she said viciously. "You think you do, but you don't."

"I know you crawled inside your mother's murder and didn't come out," he said, aiming for the chinks in her armor. "I know you hide there, the same way you've hidden in nowhere relationships with men you don't love. You could be happy, Kate. You deserve to be happy, but you're afraid. Just like you're afraid to hear what your mother has to say when she's right here, trying to talk to you."

At the mention of her mother, her tightly wound control unravelled and her full temper was unleashed.

"How dare you? You think I haven't tried talking to her?!" It was an eruption unlike anything Castle had previously heard from Beckett. "My mother is not speaking to me! She won't say anything! Why do you think I'm trying to solve this case!"

"Tried talking to her?" he scoffed. "You asked her if she remembered who murdered her! It's not the same thing! If you tried to have a conversation with her you'd know that she's not here for justice. She can't even remember anything about her murder."

"What?" she stared at him. "How do you know that?"

He stayed silent, because he didn't trust himself to speak when still so raw with frustration. All the words he wanted to throw at her were like gravel in his mouth, scratching his tongue and sticking between his teeth.

"Answer the question, Castle," she ground out. "How do you know what I said to her?"

"She told me," he replied, and added one last jab hoping it would make its way through her monumental stubbornness and get her to just stop: "she told me because I am willing to listen."

At that Kate was visibly shaken. Well, Castle thought, if his plan was to rattle her, he'd certainly succeeded.

"Get out," she told him. "You and me, we're done."

Without sparing him a glance, she stalked into her bedroom and slammed the door shut.

Castle followed her lead and slammed her front door shut behind him. She wasn't going to listen. Not to him, not to any of them

* * *

Kate sat on the edge of her bed, her apartment still echoing from the sound of Castle slamming the door shut behind him. She stewed in her anger and betrayal-that Castle of all people would tell her to throw the case, that he would tell her that she should stop...Stop when she was so close, so damn close she could taste it.

She had to take deep, controlled breaths to keep from punching something in frustration. She rested her elbows on her knees, and pressed her clenched fists against her forehead.

And her mom. Betrayal again washed over her. Hot tears pressed against her closed eyelids but Kate refused to let them fall. Her mother didn't speak to her, but she spoke with Castle. Castle who wanted her to stop.

She was trying so hard to set things right for her mom, so why wasn't her mom talking to her?

"What did I do wrong?" she asked the empty room. Unsurprisingly, she received no answer. Surprisingly, though, her mother appeared next to her, faithful to her silent vigil. Not so faithful, Kate reminded herself. She'd spoken to Castle, apparently.

Maybe the silence was a message. After all, her mother was justified in being disappointed in her. Twelve years and she'd come up with nothing. She'd joined the force to solve this case, this one case. And she had nothing but a trail of dead bodies and dried up leads and quitting partners to show for it.

"I let you down," she told her mom, still unable to look at her. "I'm trying to find the truth for you. I'll continue trying. I won't stop." She finally summoned the bravery to look at her mom. "I won't stop."

Her mother shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.

"Say something," Kate pleaded, confused by her mother's sudden tears, "just say something. I want to understand."

Her mom opened her mouth. Kate held her breath.

No sound came out.

It was exactly as it had been in her dreams. In her nightmares. Her mom opening her mouth to speak, but nothing but silence coming out. The pain in her mom's eyes cut right through Kate.

"Why are you hurting?" Kate asked. "I don't understand." Not thinking, she reached out for her mom, tried to take her mother's hands in her own. Instead of meeting solid skin and bones, she met with a shimmering, all-encompassing warmth. It was like...Kate's eyes fell shut. It felt like she could breathe for the first time in years. The iron fist that had wrapped itself around her heart twelve years ago with unrelenting fierceness loosened its grip. It had been so long, she'd forgotten it was even there. She was filled with a swift, sweet warmth, like stepping into a steaming bath after a miserable day. A miserable twelve years.

"Mom," she whispered, awed, unable to wrap her mind around what was happening. Unable to look beyond the wonder in her mother's eyes. She remembered this feeling, this familiarity. And yet it was so different.

It wasn't the same, and it never would be the same.

The full weight of how much she missed her mother, of how much it just hurt to not have her around slammed into Kate. All these years trying to find her mother's killer had felt like chasing an elusive ghost. And for what? She would never again hear that voice, never again feel that touch. It would change nothing. It wouldn't salve her bleeding heart. Maybe, all this time, she'd been looking in the wrong direction. Maybe in looking for the ghost she'd thought was haunting her, she hadn't seen the one that really was.

And with this realization came an intense, broiling anger towards the man who had taken her mother from her, the man who had left her mom to bleed out, alone, in an alley.

A sudden stab of cold unlike anything Kate had ever felt lanced from her fingers, where she was in contact with her mother, to the base of her skull. A bright light flashed at the back of her eyes and Kate started in shock. She fumbled backwards and almost fell off the bed in trying to get away from the pain. For a moment, everything around her was so dark, Kate thought she'd gone blind. Then, little by little, she could make out her bedroom, the familiar shapes and sights.

And she was alone. Her mom was gone.

"Mom!" Kate searched her apartment frantically, missing the warmth she'd unexpectedly felt after over a decade of going without. She ran to her living room, her office, but her mother was nowhere. The iron fist was back, tightening its grip, tugging at her heart, hollowing her out and leaving room for nothing but an ice cold emptiness. Kate fell to her couch, unable to control the tears that kept falling, unrelenting, down her cheeks and into her cupped hands.

Come back, she thought fervently, please come back.

But those kinds of prayers hadn't worked twelve years ago, and Kate was old enough and experienced enough to know they wouldn't work now. So she didn't say them out loud.


End file.
